Google Ups the Stakes in Computer-Phones

Verizon’s new Motorola Droid computer-phone is one of the best challengers yet to Apple’s iPhone. Which probably misses the point.

Mind you, Verizon, Motorola, and Google, which makes the Android operating system for the new device, have invested a lot in the comparison. An “iDon’t” ad campaign in print and online make the case that the Droid has capabilities that the iPhone lacks. There’s even a militant TV spot in which stealth warplanes bomb bystanders with Droid cellphones.

However, the really big aspect of Droid and Google’s 2.0 version of Android is that it gives birth to a new ecosystem for computer-phones.

(I use the term “computer-phone” to describe the class of devices that are small handheld computers married to cellphones. As David Pogue of The New York Times has noted, the old term “smartphone” isn’t really adequate to describe the latest technology.)

Android phones are married to Google’s online services. One of the first things you must do when you set one up, in fact, is either sign into an existing gmail account or create one. The phone links up its contacts and calendars to Google Contact and Google Calendars. While you can add support for other forms of email and corporate users can plug into Microsoft Exchange servers, Google is the only way for “civilians” to sync contacts and calendars. (One annoyance: calendar sync is limited to only the first Gmail account you set up, so if you have more than one account and calendar you are out of luck on syncing the rest.)

Uniquely among computer-phones, the Droid does not ship with desktop data transfer software. There’s no equivalent of iTunes, BlackBerry Desktop, Windows ActiveSync, or the like. To get photos and music on or off the Droid, you plug it into your computer with a USB cable, pull down a menu on the Droid’s touchscreen and “mount” the device on your computer. The Droid -- actually, its MicroSD memory card -- then shows up as a drive on your computer and you transfer files the same way you would with, say, a USB memory stick.

I recommend a free download of doubleTwist (doubletwist.com), available for both Mac and Windows to manage photos, music, and videos. It will simplify the transfer process and make it easier to create playlists.

But the essence of the Android concept is that your data lives on the “cloud” of Google’s services.

Google owes its explosive growth in part to its recognition that in the digital age data is more important than devices. It has expanded from its search and advertising core functions to attract more and more information into its servers. Contacts. Calendars. Documents. Photos. Video. And the list keeps growing. In return for hosting this information Google does two basic things for you: It gives you services for free that other companies charge large fees for. And it lets you access your data seamlessly on any platform you choose -- your own computer, the computer at an Internet cafe, or the Droid. Your data is available to you where you want it, when you want it. (Provided, of course, you have an Internet connection.)

As I wrote previously, I have reservations about “cloud computing” -- keeping data on the Internet. You entrust a great deal of personal data to Google. While I believe Google’s founders are sincere in their “don’t be evil” philosophy, it defies human nature to believe that the massive databases in Google’s possession will never be misused. That doesn’t mean you should avoid their services -- I use them. But you should think a little bit about how much privacy you are willing to give away.

Those caveats duly noted, my experience was that the Google ecosystem generally works well. Data synced promptly and efficiently between the Droid and Google. Someone who uses Google services as his or her principal data repository will be well satisfied. However, those of us who use desktop apps such as Microsoft Outlook on a PC or Microsoft Entourage on a Mac (or the built-in Mac and Windows equivalents) will find that the tools now available to sync that data with Google are somewhat clunky. You sync the desktop data to Google, which then syncs to the Droid. I doubt that will improve in the future as neither Microsoft nor Apple are highly motivated to enhance Google as a competitor.

On the all-important “is it as good as an iPhone?” question, the answer is: “of course, not.” The iPhone is smaller, lighter, and more sophisticated. It has extensive touch screen capabilities that the Droid lacks. For example, while the iPhone has its celebrated pinch-or-spread your fingers ability to blow up or shrink the data on display, Doid users have to use a system of tapping a zoom function. The iPhone is a better media player, a better game platform, and can host more apps.

The Doid, however, does have some advantages of its own. It’s very fast, thanks to its powerful processor. It has a more sensitive camera. It mutlitasks. It has voice dialing, voice searching, and voice-guided navigation. With its MicroSD card, it has expandable memory. And -- most important -- it has a swappable battery. The only thing that’s truly off is the slide-out keyboard, which hard to type on accurately yet lacks the auto-correction feature of the Droid’s onscreen virtual keyboard. Still, all-in-all it’s a nice device.

But let’s be frank here. None of this is going to be the key factor in whether someone buys a Droid or an iPhone. The real issue is Verizon vs. AT&T.

As Verizon’s “there a map for that” attack ads note, it offers high-speed “3G” access more widely than AT&T, which has the U.S. exclusive for the iPhone. In my experience, Verizon also has many fewer phone call drop outs than AT&T does. Joking about dropped calls is one of the rites of iPhone ownership. There’s also the issue of tethering -- using your phone as a modem for your laptop. A spokeswoman for Verizon promises that tethering will be available on the Droid early next year. But even though the iPhone has had tethering capability since a July software update, AT&T has neither turned on the feature nor set a timetable for doing so. On the other hand, Verizon is notoriously the most expensive cellular provider so you pay for that network coverage.

The choice in a nutshell is whether to go with slickest computer-phone or the slickest network. If Droid can make customers at least debate the question, it will be a success for Verizon.

Operating Systems: Paying for Their Mistakes

You gotta love the software business. There are -- excluding Wall Street bailouts, of course -- very few industries where you can get the consumer to pay for your mistakes.

Case in point: this year’s new operating system releases from Apple (Snow Leopard) and Microsoft (Windows 7).

An OS is the basic underpinning of a computer’s software serving as a kind a middleman between the hardware and other applications. Both companies had pretty good operating systems on the market a few years ago. Microsoft had released Windows XP in 2001 and by 2005 a series of service packs -- the term the industry uses for major-but-free software overhauls -- had cured enough bugs to make it efficient and reliable. Also in 2005, Apple rolled out Mac OS 10.4 “Tiger,” which was highly regarded for user-friendly feature sets and good performance.

Then in 2007 things went wrong.

For Apple they went slightly wrong. Its 10.5 “Leopard” system added a variety of features such as built-in backup and (catching up with Windows) a center for playing multimedia. It also offered support for 64-bit applications -- the previous standard was 32-bit -- which allow computers to run faster if they have processors with that capability.

The problem was the Leopard supported both Macs with Apple’s old PowerPC processors and newer units with the new Intel processor technology. Leopard consumed a great deal of disk space and users who upgraded from Tiger commonly experienced degraded performance. Macs that had been zippy with Tiger were slow to boot up and sluggish in loading applications. In my testing, I found that PowerPC users should avoid it.

While Apple has never admitted that trying to bridge the two processor technologies had compromised the OS, the fact is that the Intel-only OS 10.6 “Snow Leopard” released earlier this year is a speedier and more reliable system on an Intel Mac. I recommend the upgrade, especially since Apple gave it a modest price: $30 for a single Mac; $60 for a family pack to upgrade five Macs.

Windows is another story.

Long delayed (to the point of forcing company reorganizations and a few executive resignations/firings), the Vista operation system appeared on the market in 2007 as well.

And bombed.

Reviewers panned it for being unreliable, buggy, and appallingly slow. It was a huge hardware resource hog, which made those who upgraded older computers regret that they had done so. Users found that applications or devices on their PCs were constantly at war with Vista. Corporate users, always a prime market for Microsoft but especially so for Vista because it was designed to fix major security flaws in XP, stayed away in droves.

New PC customers started ordering units with XP instead of Vista and continued even after Microsoft attempted to discourage the practice.

So in October, Microsoft released Windows 7, which is for all intents and purposes a debugged incarnation of Vista. Some major reviewers have given it glowing marks, which leads me to wonder if some of my colleagues live in a different plane of reality from ordinary users. In my testing, Windows 7 fixed the most annoying problems with Vista but was not as spectacular an improvement as some testimonials would have you believe.

In an upgrade installation, I found that Windows 7 ended the handful of software and hardware incompatibility woes that had cropped up over time in Vista, but didn’t make the test system noticeably faster. A “clean” installation of Window 7 on a wiped hard drive produced a little better performance -- but that’s pretty much true of any clean installation of any OS ever made.

While it boots up faster than Vista did, Windows 7 is still slow in launching applications. It has some nice interface touches -- for example, in giving you a preview of what’s open in other applications when you are switching from one to the other. It also supports touch-screen PCs. But the fact is that with respect to productivity, a PC running Windows 7 and Office 2007 (Microsoft’s other flagship product) offers very little advantage over the Windows XP - Office 2003 combo. This is not my idea of progress.

Windows 7 also has lawyer-inflicted quirks. Because of the various antitrust actions against Microsoft, the company does not include email and other small applications on the installation DVD. This is apparently to ensure that PC makers feel free to install non-Microsoft software. If you want the Microsoft versions, you need to download them from Microsoft’s website.

I would certainly recommend that purchasers of new PCs go with Windows 7. It is more secure and more modern than XP.

Upgrades are a more difficult call. Microsoft has set hefty pricetags on Windows upgrades. The current street prices range from just over $100 for the Home Premium upgrade (the version most non-corporate users will need) to $200 for the top-of-the-line Ultimate edition. Also, while Microsoft allows for “in-place” upgrades (that is, changing the OS while leaving data and applications undisturbed) for Vista, you have to start from scratch with XP.

My advice to XP users would be to stand pat until you are ready to replace your PC. But if you have Vista, get rid of it. Just don’t pay any more for your upgrade than you have to.